Dead Man's Curve---Jan and Dean. 
Uplifting beach tune, yet a song about a car collision.

It's My Party---Leslie Gore
Her boyfriend ditches her at her birthday party for another girl.

Leader of the Pack---Shangri Las
Breaks up with her boyfriend, and then finds out that he died in a motorcycle crash.

The One That Got Away---Katy Perry
Sounds upbeat, but the title speaks for itself.

Pumped Up Kicks---Foster the People. 
Sounds like a surf song, but it could actually fit into a Columbine documentary.

Remember (Walkin' In the Sand)---Shangri Las. 
Beachy sound thrown in with some seagulls, but the song is about a breakup.

There Goes My Baby---

"Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" may have been everybody's carefree representation of Jamaica as kids, but it's actually a depressing damn song, recounting the unfruitful lives of the black working class on the historical British colony.

"Fantastic Voyage" by Coolio sounds like a party-rap song at face value, but the verses actually describe the harshness of inner-city ghetto life.

Prince's "1999" is not so much about the positive anticipation for the new millennium so much as the feeling of armageddon. It refers to the Y2K scare, not the new-years parties.

"Where Is the Love" by the Black Eyed Peas is another obvious example.

Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind is a pretty prominent example. Pop rock but it's all about drug use and a bad breakup.

Back on the Chain Gang by the Pretenders, which has an almost cheery quality to it but at its core is a song about breakup and regret.

Hey Ya! by Outkast, another wonderfully cheery breakup song.

Your Love by The Outfield, sounds like a standard love song from a distance but it's actually a song about infidelity and loneliness.

I think Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day sounds rather melancholy on any repeated listen, but it's often misinterpreted as this nostaligic, celebratory kind of track by less discerning listeners.

Get a Job---Coasters.
Sha la la la...yip yip yip (reminds me of those Sesame Street aliens)...yet the song is all about a guy struggling to find a job.

Charlie Brown---Coasters
That cartoon character is sure going through a hard time.

Poison Ivy---Coaster
The title speaks for itself.

The Happening---The Supremes
This song sounds so upbeat yet  it's about losing her love and she looks at it from a cynical approach.

Kelly Clarkson - Behind These Hazel Eyes;  The song doesn't match the lyrics at all

From way back, the Everly Brothers - Bye Bye Love.  So happy and cheerful melody but sad lyrics.

Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton

Recounting the haunting – real or imagined – of a young man by his dead lover, the song is one of the most noted of the 'death ditties' that populated the transatlantic pop charts in the early to mid-1960s. It is distinguished in particular by its eerie, echoing sound (a hallmark of the Joe Meek production style) and by the ghostly, foreboding female wails that form its backing vocal (by Lissa Gray).

Message In A Bottle by the Police. The song is up beat but the lyics are about being castaway on a desserted island.

Message In A Bottle by the Police. The song is up beat but the lyics are about being castaway on a desserted island.


But the song has a happy ending.

But the song has a happy ending.


A happy ending? The ending is the grimmest and most cynical part of the whole tune.

A happy ending? The ending is the grimmest and most cynical part of the whole tune.

Yes.
Walked out this morning
Don't believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles
Washed up on the shore
Seems I'm not alone at being alone
A hundred billion castaways
Looking for a home

"If I Ever Feel Better" by Phoenix

I used to listen to this song multiple times a day and it would put a hop in my step and brighten my mood because the tune is so upbeat. But one day I decided to look up all the lyrics and that's when it hit me that it's a bit of a downer. I still love the song, but it gives me a more bittersweet feeling when I hear it now.

Ain't It Fun by Paramore really fits in!

I think that "In My Life" by The Beatles falls into this category

"King Of Anything" by Sara Bareilles. She's telling the person she's singing to that it's not nice to be domineering all the time.

ohwroj2lun4 I didn't know this Swedish song had such sad lyrics. https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com.ph&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http://www.lyricsbox.com/teresia-kom-ner-p%25C3%25A5-jorden-lyrics-wkrpjmz.html&usg=ALkJrhgYSgSwzlRrPO1OqndRUAKBcy4HNw

"Today" by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Even though many people believe the lyric "today's the greatest" implies that "Today" is upbeat, the song is actually about a day when Billy Corgan was having suicidal thoughts.

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by The Beatles.

The song is about a medical student who commits murders with a hammer, but this is disguised by the upbeat nature of the song.

"Today" by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Even though many people believe the lyric "today's the greatest" implies that "Today" is upbeat, the song is actually about a day when Billy Corgan was having suicidal thoughts.

Kindof a sad thought. :(



"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by The Beatles.

The song is about a medical student who commits murders with a hammer, but this is disguised by the upbeat nature of the song.

Yeah, that one's depressing for sure.

Pretty much any female pop/rock vocalist in the mid/late '00s (pre-electropop era).  Stuff like this comes to mind.

yipoOY56MbM

vubMfPh7URs

This song really gets to me.  :) I love that Gord Deppe and Sandy Horne are so emotional in this video.  I didn't know it at the time but Sandy and Gord were a couple who broke up a week before this video was filmed.  :)

Dancing in my own-Robyn. This is the original version of Callum Scott's 2016 hit.

Most Cascada songs that were from before 2009.

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by The Beatles.

The song is about a medical student who commits murders with a hammer, but this is disguised by the upbeat nature of the song.


And I raise you Danielle Dax:

L_gH4G-mzyQ

Danielle's cute and perky, and her synthpop from 1990 is so danceable.  And her lyrics about the rise of politicians who "say there's a new way coming to town," well, that seems to fit in nicely with "guns to the left and dollars to the right" -- and it ends with collapse of human civilization via nuclear war.  For the sake of the Id.  Or, as a modern-day Freud might have said having witnessed the events of the past six months, for the lulz.  Well, dance on and enjoy the deconstruction!  Blood red, all dead, oh, that's the way, pushing and a-shoving in the Id Parade!

dIfNnmnb3pM

The song is supposedly about the dreaming of violence towards his classmates and peers and explains his plans and ambitions for a school shooting. ???